Dr. Omowale Akintunde on separating church influence on government policies.

Omowale Akintunde
Hi, Cori! I read your post and I have multiple things to say. And like you, I am concerned about the length of space my response would consume. It is impossible for me to respond succinctly. Additionally, I am certain that I would introduce concepts that might be foreign to my faithful FB friends. I have posted on this issue continuously. I have used my classroom as a platform for elucidation on these issues. You will probably find my response a bit problematic despite the fact that in the end we actually agree with each other. For me, religion is truly the opiate of the masses. LI don't care about Christian interpretation because Christianity ITSELF is the problem here. Like all proselytizing religions, it inculcates people into blind allegiance into some of the most ridiculous ideologies imaginable. As I posted earlier, if you believe in talking snakes, that's on you. My problem is when you begin to presume that all people must and that you have the right to extrapolate your religious beliefs as the foundation for human "knowing." This is what is called epistemology. Knowing is a social construct. Religion is a social construct. The notion of morality (axiology) is a social construct. Now, I hate to jump all academic on everybody but that is the problem here. People are using religious dogma as a means for interpreting social reality (ontology). Now the problem with this is that all religions have different and mutually exclusive epistemologies, ontologies and axiologies. The Christian believe that Mary woke up one morning pregnant. No sex. No nothing. Just woke up pregnant. Further she deduced that God was the baby daddy. Then there's the prophet Muhammad interpretation that says this is a total lie. God spoke to the prophet Muhammad giving him revelations through the Angel Gabriel. Then there are the Jews who say, poppycock. No such person as Jesus or Muhammad existed and the Messiah has not come. As a result of these conflicting "truths" with each group believing their "truth" is ABSOLUTE, there have been a succession of slaughtering wars that have gone on for centuries.
There's a reason why a slave's hands were cut off for reading but they were Christianized. Once you brainwash a person to believe in your deity absolutely you can get them to believe anything! That includes talking snakes, babies that appear out of the clear blue with God's name on their birth certificate, angels that appear with revelations, and a host of other bullshit. AND THEY WILL DEFEND THESE THINGS TO THEIR DYING BREATH! The reason I admire this President is that he has pushed through the bullshit and has attempted to create a society that is beyond these stagnant oppressive "truths." For me, the proof is not in religion but rather outside of it. This is why folks like Bristol Palin, an unwed mother, knocked up in the 11th grade, and high school dropout has the nerve to attack the President's stance on equal marriage and his daughters based on that bible of hers. Mind you, that SAME BIBLE was used as the basis for enslaving Blacks, denying us the right to marry White people and to vote. Now WE are using that same bible to justify gay oppression. The funny thing is more than 70 percent of Black babies are born out of wedlock and Black mothers are 10X more likely to be at or below the poverty line. Yet they lead the charge against marriage equality!! People will continue to die, Cori. They will continue to die because of the hypocrisy of religiosity. The only way we can move beyond this is to educate our people away from the invisible man and their White savior and move toward or more humanistic interpretation of reality
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